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Scientists believe they have found the first evidence of the existence of other universes beyond our own, following analysis of the radiation left behind by the Big Bang. Data gathered by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft enabled researchers to map the "cosmic microwave" of background radiation left behind when the universe began 13.8 billion years ago. The findings imply the universe could be just one of billions, or even an infinite number, they say. The map showed anomalies that cosmologists believe could only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes outside our own. "These anomalies were...

I have long been fascinated by the idea that the universe is not actually a singular object but made up of a multiverse of infinite universes. Each of these Universes is seemingly branch off at every possible action or inaction. This idea is staggering in it’s immensity. It seems like science fiction and it has certainly been a staple of science fiction for at least forty years. It may have remained science fiction but fortunately I am not alone in believing this might in fact be possible.

My endless rants here about the hot field of multiverse studies are mainly motivated by concern about the effect this is having on particle theory. Multiverse scenarios all too often function as an excuse for not admitting that string theory/extra-dimensional ideas about unification have failed. Such an admission would encourage people to move on to more promising ideas, but instead hep-th is stuck in an endless doldrums with the high profile public face of the subject dominated by excited claims about what a wonderful discovery this region is.Independently of the string theory problem, I’m personally a skeptic that multiverse...

Big as it is, our universe may be just one of many, all floating in a nearly unfathomable "multiverse," scientists say. Problem is, there's been no way to test the idea. Now, though, physicists say they've devised a way to detect "bruises" from our cosmos's purported collisions with other universes. The international team has created a new computer algorithm to hunt for such irregularities in our universe, which they say would be disk-shaped—think of the temporary, circular flattening that happens when one beach ball bumps into another. Because the multiverse would likely have expanded so fast that its universes would...

GAMBLERS already had enough to think about without factoring the end of time into their calculations. But a year after a group of cosmologists argued that they should, another team says time need not end after all. It all started with this thought experiment. In a back room in a Las Vegas casino, you are handed a fair coin to flip. You will not be allowed to see the outcome, and the moment the coin lands you will fall into a deep sleep. If the coin lands heads up, the dealer will wake you 1 minute later; tails, in 1...

Victor Stenger, a retired physics prof from the University of Hawaii, has given us two books that explain both atheism and "multiverses", and behold, they are one. Few other proponents of multiverses are quite as forthcoming with their logic, but clearly something besides data must motivate the science of multiverses, because by definition multiverses are not observable. Stenger makes the connection explicit, whereas Hawking or Susskind is a little more coy with their metaphysics. Multiverse-theory is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to defend atheism. It makes no predictions, it gives no insight, it provides...

Modern cosmology theory holds that our universe may be just one in a vast collection of universes known as the multiverse. MIT physicist Alan Guth has suggested that new universes (known as “pocket universes”) are constantly being created, but they cannot be seen from our universe. In this view, “nature gets a lot of tries — the universe is an experiment that’s repeated over and over again, each time with slightly different physical laws, or even vastly different physical laws,” says Jaffe. Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others, the forces between particles would be so...

The signatures of a bubble collision: A collision (top left) induces a temperature modulation in the CMB temperature map (top right). The “blob” associated with the collision is identified by a large needlet response (bottom left), and the presence of an edge is determined by a large response from the edge detection algorithm (bottom right). Image credit: Feeney, et al.(PhysOrg.com) -- By looking far out into space and observing what’s going on there, scientists have been led to theorize that it all started with a Big Bang, immediately followed by a brief period of super-accelerated expansion called inflation. Perhaps this...

You have probably heard about the multiverse--the idea that the universe is really a large number of universes. The multiverse helps to explain why our particular universe seems so special. Our universe seems to be a finely tuned machine and the evolution of life would require low probability events. Is our universe special? The multiverse helps to deflect such thinking. If there is a large number of universes, then perhaps each has a different set of natural laws. And perhaps intelligent life can only be supported by a very particular set of laws. So the only life forms that would...

The typical Hollywood action hero skirts death for a living. Time and again, scores of bad guys shoot at him from multiple directions but miss by a hair. Cars explode just a fraction of a second too late for the fireball to catch him before he finds cover. And friends come to the rescue just before a villain’s knife slits his throat. If any one of those things happened just a little differently, the hero would be hasta la vista, baby. Yet even if we have not seen the movie before, something tells us that he will make it to...

New Scientist magazine is generally regarded by the secular community as one of the top-ranked science magazines in the world. However, a published opinion by a regular columnist demonstrated how “unscientific” and anti-God some of their articles have become—something we have documented before (see Refutation of New Scientist’s Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions). Amanda Gefter wrote an article discussing multiverse theory, or the idea that our universe may be only one of many that currently exist. Such speculations attempt to explain away the appearance of design in the universe, because of, as we shall see, the spiritual implications. In an...

The strongest limit on the number of possible universes is the human ability to distinguish between different universes. (PhysOrg.com) -- Over the past few decades, the idea that our universe could be one of many alternate universes within a giant multiverse has grown from a sci-fi fantasy into a legitimate theoretical possibility. Several theories of physics and astronomy have hypothesized the existence of a multiverse made of many parallel universes. One obvious question that arises, then, is exactly how many of these parallel universes might there be. In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated...

BRIAN GREENE spent a good part of the last decade extolling the virtues of string theory. He dreamed that one day it would provide physicists with a theory of everything that would describe our universe - ours and ours alone. His bestselling book The Elegant Universe eloquently captured the quest for this ultimate theory. "But the fly in the ointment was that string theory allowed for, in principle, many universes," says Greene, who is a theoretical physicist at Columbia University in New York. In other words, string theory seems equally capable of describing universes very different from ours. Greene hoped...

How our youthful universe explored the string-theory multiverse in search of home—with help from its anti-universe counterpart. Its journey could explain why our cosmos is so well suited for life.Saswat Sarangi owes his career in physics to a twist of fate. When he was a 13 year-old schoolboy in Orissa in eastern India, his uncle bought him a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time as a birthday present. Unfortunately, the young Sarangi would have preferred a cricket bat, and the book remained unread for two years, until he found himself struggling to prepare for a physics test...

"The multiverse is no longer a model, it is a consequence of our models.” ~Aurelien Barrau, particle physicist at CERN The Hollywood blockbuster, The Golden Compass, adapted from the first volume of Pullman's classic sci-fi trilogy, "His Dark Materials" portrays various universes as only one reality among many, but how realistic is this kind of classic sci-fi plot? While it hasn’t been proven yet, many highly respected and credible scientists are now saying there’s reason to believe that parallel dimensions could very well be more than figments of our imaginations. "The idea of multiple universes is more than a fantastic...

BRIAN GREENE spent a good part of the last decade extolling the virtues of string theory. He dreamed that one day it would provide physicists with a theory of everything that would describe our universe - ours and ours alone. His bestselling book The Elegant Universe eloquently captured the quest for this ultimate theory. "But the fly in the ointment was that string theory allowed for, in principle, many universes," says Greene, who is a theoretical physicist at Columbia University in New York. In other words, string theory seems equally capable of describing universes very different from ours. Greene hoped...

Is theoretical physics becoming the next battleground in the culture wars? Not according to some theologians and scientists.People have long sought after a theory of everything, even when they had nothing but their five senses as tools of measurement. In the 6th century BCE Thales asserted that all matter is made of water; Anaximenes responded that itÂ’s all air. Parmenides a century later concluded with exacting proofs that everything we see is an illusion and that reality really consists of a single, unchanging sphere. Today, scientists are once again looking beyond the pale of measurable time and space to answer...

WHAT would you rather believe in, God or the multiverse? It sounds like an instance of cosmic apples and oranges, but increasingly we're being told it's choice we must make. Take the dialogue earlier this year between Richard Dawkins and physicist Steven Weinberg in Austin, Texas. Discussing the fact that universe appears fine-tuned for our existence, Weinberg told Dawkins: "If you discovered a really impressive fine-tuning... I think you'd really be left with only two explanations: a benevolent designer or multiverse." Weinberg went on to clarify that invoking a benevolent designer does not count as a genuine explanation, but I...

Is there a God or a multiverse? Does modern cosmology force us to choose? Is it the case that the apparent fine-tuning of constants and forces to make the universe just right for life means there is either a need for a "tuner" or else a cosmos in which every possible variation of these constants and forces exists somewhere? This choice has provoked anxious comment in the pages of this week's New Scientist. It follows an article in Discover magazine, in which science writer Tim Folger quoted cosmologist Bernard Carr: "If you don't want God, you'd better have a multiverse."...

A priceless scene appears in the movie, “Expelled”, when Ben Stein asks the leading proponent of Darwinism and atheism, Richard Dawkins, how life began. After sputtering for a few moments, Dawkins offers the thought that some advanced creature from outer space may have seeded life on earth, exposing the fact that Darwinists, who have an answer for everything, have no answer for this most basic question. Now that we know that every key relationship in the universe is based on six numbers (see note 1), that these relationships are crucial to life, and that there would be no life and...